Good morning, welcome to our investor call to discuss the combination between Columbia Banking System and Umpqua Holdings Corporation. After this speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session you will need to press star one on your telephone. At this time, I would like to introduce Jacquelynne Bohlen, Investor Relations director for Umpqua, to begin the conference call. Thank you, Erica. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today on our joint Columbia Banking System and Umpqua Holdings Corporation conference call. This morning, our banks jointly issued a press release announcing our planned combination. We have also prepared a slide presentation, which we'll refer to during today's discussion. Both materials have been posted on our respective websites, columbiabank.com and umpquabank.com in the investor relations section. With me today are Clint Stein, President and CEO of Columbia, Cort O'Haver, President and CEO of Umpqua, Ron Farnsworth, Chief Financial Officer of Umpqua, and Aaron Deer, Chief Financial Officer of Columbia. Following our prepared remarks, we will take your questions. During today's call, we will make forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties and are intended to be covered by the safe harbor provisions of federal securities law. For a list of factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations, please refer to slide one of the investor presentation as well as the disclosure contained within our SEC filings. I will now turn the call over to Cort O'Haver, President and CEO of Umpqua. Okay. Good morning, and thank you, Jackie. We appreciate everyone joining us today on such short notice, and we're excited to share the details of this strategic partnership with you. This morning, Columbia and Umpqua announced an agreement to combine to create the West Coast's leading regional bank. After I give an overview of the transaction, Clint will detail the strategic rationale behind our partnership and the significant opportunities it provides to all stakeholders. Ron will walk us through the expected earnings accretion and other financial benefits. Beginning on slide two in the investor deck, you can see at a high level the few reasons we're so excited. Our combined company will be a top 30 institution nationally with more than $50 billion in pro forma assets, an enhanced balance sheet, and significant synergy opportunities. Together, we will increase scale throughout the West Coast with a footprint across desirable thriving markets. We are also combining highly complementary business models, and each bank brings significant commercial and retail banking talent and offerings to the table. We are confident that joining our franchises together will enable us to generate organic loan growth funded by low-cost deposits at a broader scale than we are able to deliver individually. In addition, we are not only combining complementary businesses, we are combining complementary cultures. Umpqua and Columbia are both people-first organizations with unwavering commitments to supporting our associates, customers, and communities, and we will build on these shared values as one company. With our enhanced scale, stronger and more diversified business model, and improved profile, we expect this combination to be substantially accretive to both Umpqua and Columbia's earnings. This accretion drives improved profitability metrics and meaningful excess capital generation, which will support future strategic investments, continued community support, and increased shareholder value over time. Now, I would like to hand it over to Clint to discuss in more detail the compelling merits of our combination and the opportunities it will create. Thank you, Cort, and good morning, everyone. I share Cort's enthusiasm for what we are going to build together. As you've heard me say many times before, the criteria we consider in any merger are that it makes financial sense for our shareholders, it's complementary to our business model, and it's culturally compatible. This combination is very consistent with those criteria. Our teams have a long history of collaborating with one another on industry, market, social, and technical trends. During the initial phase of the pandemic, Cort and I worked jointly on several occasions, which laid a solid foundation for our relationship. We both quickly realized that we care about the same things. We're deeply passionate about being a premier employee-centric workplace focused on exceeding client expectations while delivering top-tier financial results for our shareholders. Flipping to slide three, you can see the incredibly balanced aspects of the combination. While Columbia will be the legal acquirer with Umpqua Holdings Corporation merging into Columbia Banking System, Umpqua will be the accounting acquirer. As part of the all-stock transaction, Umpqua shareholders will receive a fixed exchange ratio of 0.5958 of a share of Columbia stock for each Umpqua share. Following the deal's close, Umpqua shareholders will own 62% of the combined company, and Columbia shareholders will own 38%. The holding company, which will retain the Columbia name and trade under the Columbia ticker, will be headquartered in Tacoma, Washington, and the bank subsidiary, which will operate under the Umpqua Bank name, will be headquartered in the greater Portland, Oregon area. Under the new leadership structure, I will serve as CEO, and Cort will be the Deputy Chair. Ron will serve as CFO, and Chris Merrywell and Tory Nixon will serve as bank-level presidents for consumer banking and commercial banking respectively. Craig Eerkes, Columbia's current chairman, will serve as lead independent director, and the 14-member board will be evenly split between the two companies. We expect to close the transaction in mid-2022, subject to approval from both companies' shareholders and customary regulatory approvals. Slide four provides additional details on the new executive management team, which will be a blend of Columbia and Umpqua leaders. Cort and I are thrilled with the way this group worked together during diligence. Given our deep bench of talent, we're very excited about the leadership of our combined company. I'd like to take a moment to point out the substantial integration experience highlighted on this slide. This is a group of people that have successfully executed a significant number of transactions over the past 20-plus years. Many of these integrations were completed at our respective organizations. This track record, coupled with a deep knowledge of our overlapping markets and cultural compatibility, give me the utmost confidence that our team will execute a seamless integration. Turning to slide six, you can see the tremendous scale this combination will create. The pro forma institution occupies a notably higher market share position, and we're number one when you narrow the group down to independent franchises focused on the West Coast. We are creating a $50 billion-plus bank underpinned by a deposit portfolio that is 44% non-interest-bearing. Our desirable footprint, expanded balance sheet, and combined product offerings provide tremendous opportunities for future success. Moving on to slide seven and a deeper dive into the complementary nature of our businesses. This is a combination of two banks that are more similar than they are different. Yet the partnership provides an enhanced foundation to drive value beyond the sum of our individual parts. Our pro forma franchise solidifies our position as a leading regional bank on the West Coast, expanding our combined presence in thriving western markets. Our larger balance sheet will also enable us to deepen client relationships and leverage our scale and strategic technology infrastructure to develop enhanced, even more competitive offerings to support our customers. The table on the right highlights some of the expertise Columbia and Umpqua bring to the table. We've identified multiple niches and business lines where one bank's specialization creates opportunities to expand and enhance the other's existing capabilities. Take corporate and small business lending, for example. Our combined company will benefit from Columbia's small business acumen and Umpqua's corporate banking success. This is just one example of how we can leverage each bank's competitive proficiency to create accelerated expansion of our combined franchise. There are many other examples, including opportunities to diversify the go-forward organization's capabilities, like expanding Columbia's healthcare banking expertise to Umpqua and Umpqua's equipment leasing aptitude to Columbia. I want to reiterate the financial metrics laid out in this presentation do not include any revenue synergies, but it is clear there is notable potential to realize these benefits down the line. Slide eight and nine highlight our diversified pro forma loan and deposit portfolios, which will create significant opportunities to fund growth and provide resiliency through economic cycles. Though our pro forma loan portfolio is distinctly commercial in nature, given 81% exposure, our pro forma deposit portfolio is more evenly split, with retail at 52% of balances. A stable, low cost, core deposit base provides us with a tremendous competitive advantage. Our scale will provide us with the flexibility to increase investments to build on our already strong technology infrastructure. We start our partnership with a robust foundation, given each organization's investments of people and funds into providing a contemporary array of technologies. We are truly excited about the opportunities ahead as we leverage our scale and enhance profitability to expand our delivery platform and capabilities to benefit current and future customers. As an example, our data and analytics capabilities will provide our bankers with more sophisticated insights to support our customers while creating significant efficiency across our business. We recognize that continuing to accelerate our innovation will be critical to maintaining and growing market share in the dynamic and rapidly changing banking industry. While we are excited about the growth opportunities ahead, what initially brought Cort and me together is that we saw two organizations with truly shared values and complementary cultures. At our heart, both Columbia and Umpqua are community-rooted businesses that focus on putting people first. We expect to not only continue this commitment as a shared organization, but to build on it. As an even stronger company with enhanced offerings, we'll be able to support our customers and communities while creating new and exciting opportunities for our employees. We are committed to empowering our teams to go above and beyond for our customers and to find new opportunities for us to grow and support our communities to make them better places to live, learn, and work. Our commitment to our community goes beyond just those we do business with. We're focused on doing our part to support those who seek to prevent change around us. In that spirit, Columbia and Umpqua will together contribute $20 million to the charitable foundations of the combined companies following the close of the transaction to demonstrate our combined increased support for our communities. Before I hand the call over to Ron to provide detail on the financial impact of the transaction, I want to take a moment to reiterate the robust nature of our collaborative due diligence process. I'm not going to walk through the individual points on slide 13. I will say that as our discussions and diligence progressed, this process reinforced our confidence that we will work very well together. Columbia and Umpqua are aligned in terms of our cultures, our credit philosophies, our focus on relationship banking, our dedication to the communities we serve, and our focus on creating value for our shareholders. We have experienced integration teams that are laser-focused on the seamless combination of our respective organizations, and I expect a smooth transition to make as we create the leading West Coast regional bank. With that, I'll turn the call over to Ron. All right. Thank you, Clint, and good morning, everyone. I'm going to walk through the key deal-related financial assumptions, which are laid out on slide 14. Based on the pro forma Umpqua ownership size of 62%, Columbia's balance sheet will be subject to fair value accounting. Slide 18 in the appendix walks through the calculation of transaction consideration for accounting purposes. We are using consensus estimates for Columbia and Umpqua. We expect to realize an estimated $135 million in pre-tax savings, which equates to 12.5% of the combined non-interest expense run rate based on 2023 median analyst estimates once we are fully integrated. I also want to highlight that Umpqua Next Gen cost-saving targets, which we have outlined previously in presentations and on calls, were taken into consideration and are separate from our cost savings level in this combination, as they will be largely realized ahead of the transaction's anticipated close. I'll also note the pro forma financial metrics throughout this presentation assume fully phased-in cost savings in 2023 for illustrative purposes. Currently, we expect the deal-related savings to phase in 66% in 2023 and 100% thereafter. As Clint discussed during his remarks, revenue synergies are expected, but they are not modeled. We expect one-time deal-related costs of $236 million on a pre-tax basis, which includes a $20 million foundation contribution. As slide 18 in the appendix details, these costs are included in our pro forma tangible book calculation at close, though we expect the timing of actual charges to range from pre-close through 2023 related to integration. The credit mark is split at 35% for purchased credit deteriorating or PCD loans and 65% for non-PCD loans, which adds to a $160 million total lifetime loss estimate, representing 1.48% of Columbia's gross loans and one times Columbia's ACL. We anticipate a day two CECL reserve of one times the non-PCD credit mark. As with deal-related costs, this $104 million expense is reflected in our pro forma capital calculations highlighted on slide 18. Additional fair value marks include a $76 million write-up for a rate premium on the gross loan portfolio, a $4 million write-down on held-to-maturity securitie s, an amortization of the unrealized gain on available for sale securities of $54 million post-tax, which equates to $72 million on a pre-tax basis. This has no impact on tangible common equity at close. We have also removed the deferred rate lock gain of $17 million. Additionally, there is a $20 million estimated fair value mark on owned real estate. The core deposit intangibles estimate a 65 basis points of Columbia's core deposit balance of $17 billion, and we expect limited deposit divestiture. As you can see on slide 15, these assumptions combine a 23% GAAP and 25% core cash EPS accretion for Columbia and 8% GAAP and 11% core cash accretion for Umpqua in 2023, using fully phased-in cost savings expectations for illustrative purposes. The supporting math is provided on slide 19 in the appendix. We expect a 5.9% tangible book dilution and an earn-back period of 2.6 years based on the cost to earn method. We will have a robust capital position at closing and a healthy amount of excess capital generation to support future growth and provide additional flexibility for shareholder return. Slides 18 and 20 in the appendix detail pro forma tangible book and capital ratio calculations. Now I'll turn the call back over to Cort. Okay, thank you, Clint and Ron, for your comments. As Clint went over in detail, this combination will create a stronger franchise position to grow and win in our markets. Together, Columbia and Umpqua will solidify our placement as a leading West Coast regional bank with significant scale and unmatched footprint in the markets in which we operate. Our robust balance sheet encompasses a top-tier funding profile and diversified loan portfolio across commercial and retail to fuel strategic technology investments and truly unlock the power of our bankers to deliver enhanced solutions to customers. We will do so while remaining true to our core values, focused on supporting our communities and empowering our employees and customers. With enhanced profitability, significant synergy opportunities, and a strong platform for growth, we also expect to create meaningful value for our shareholders over time. With that, we will now open up the floor to your questions. Your first question comes from Jared Shaw with Wells Fargo. Hi, good morning, everybody. Congratulations on the deal. I'm guessing you probably had to sleep over at the office to get a 5:30 A.M. call together in the morning. We appreciate the early call. Maybe just first question, this is a unique structure. Can you share with us how the deal came together and why the structure is as it is with Columbia being the legal acquirer? Hey, Jared. Of course. Let me start with how it came together, and maybe I'll bump it to Ron for structure. As Clint mentioned, Clint and I have gotten to know each other over the last two years. Obviously, the two companies have competed against one another and operate from a lot of the same communities and have been for many years. We're very familiar with one another. In fact, we share a lot of employees back and forth over certainly my 11 years at Umpqua Bank. As Clint mentioned last year during the pandemic, I'll give a specific example of where, in my mind, the cultures of these two companies have solidified the fact that this will be the premier West Coast commercial bank. I don't even know if I told Clint the level of detail I'm going to tell you here. An opportunity came up last year with the state of Oregon to provide $500 to every Oregon resident. We had a two-week window. They called me originally to provide this cash to Oregon residents because of our retail footprint in the state of Oregon. We're an Oregon-based employer bank. It became obvious to me pretty quickly we didn't serve every community that was in dire need of these funds. I called Clint. Clint and I spent a lot of time when the pandemic first rolled out, making sure that in our retail delivery specifically, we were operating with the health and safety of our employees and also making sure we were serving, and we would share ideas all the time. I made that phone call to Clint, I think we had three or four days to actually get that process done. I won't get into the complexity of what it was like trying to get $500 of the state of Oregon's money out to the right appropriate people in Oregon. The most compelling thing that I've never told Clint is I did call a larger institution, a top 10 bank, and quite a few smaller independent banks with the same request. "Can you help me serve communities?" With the exception of Clint, they all turned it down. They did not see the value in providing. It was complicated, and it was going to take some gray matter and some flexibility to figure out how to do this. Clint jumped in with both feet, and we were able to provide those funds to participants in the state of Oregon very quickly. At that point, even though these two companies have known each other for quite a while, it became obvious to me, and I'm a big culture guy, and I know Clint is, that if you're going to combine two companies, and really this is a combination, you better stand for the same values. I was convinced at that time, this was probably late summer of last year, that if there was a way to get these two companies together and create the West Coast's largest regional bank, this was the combination. From my perspective, as much as I have admired Columbia, and our board has admired Columbia in my 11 years at the bank, that was the linchpin for me. I don't know, Clint, if you want to add your perspective to that. I thought that was your first call, Cort. No, I do remember when Cort made that call, and there wasn't a doubt in my mind that if we could help our communities, we were going to do that. I think part of the reason that we were able to jump in with both feet is our teams have collaborated for years. In my various roles here at Columbia, I remember going back to the Visa litigation reserve issue and then FDIC loss-share accounting, and our teams, and myself included, collaborated very frequently during that time. When Cort says that we've been fierce competitors, but we've also have come together to help one another, and that's, I guess, when we really realized that we're more similar than what the market perception has been. Hey, Jared, let's let Ron explain a little bit of the complexity of the way we put the company together. Yeah, Jared, good morning. This is Ron. Not to get into the complete detail of the way it's ASC 805, but this really is a combination. I think when you look through the five to six accounting considerations for determining the accounting consideration, it really just simply comes down to the relative voting rights of the respective entities at the entity level. The 62%, 38% ownership mix Roughly 60% benefits, 40% assets on the other side. The combination of the two basically leads to where the fair value will be applied to the Columbia balance sheet. Hopefully what we've laid out on slide 18, including in the upper right corner of slide 18, gives you a good walkthrough of that consideration through to the- Great, thanks. Just a second question, I guess is, looking at the commercial platform, this really seems to extend the Umpqua commercial platform and accelerate, Cort, what you all have been trying to do. I guess, how much did that play into the deal, the ability to get deeper faster on the C&I side? It clearly accelerates our core strategy. Columbia has an exceptional commercial lending reputation, and we're building one. I think that the combination of Columbia's commercial reputation and probably our more retail reputation, even though the banks are commercial banks, I mean, they've done C&I really well. We're more similar than what the market has perceived us as. I think it accelerates both companies as we move forward. That was also a significant reason why in putting these two companies together. Great. Congratulations again, and thanks for taking our questions. Thanks, Jared. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Clark with Piper Sandler. Hey, good morning. Hey, Matt. Good morning, Matt. I noticed in the deck that you guys don't anticipate any kind of divestitures. Can you speak to your sense in talking to the regulators about the timing of the close, given kind of increased scrutiny around larger deals. I assume you've run the HHI and everything, so I assume there's not going to be any surprises there. Just any commentary around your conversations with the regulators and getting the deal closed and the timing around it. Hey, Matt, this is Clint. In Ron's prepared remarks, he did make a comment that we expect limited deposit divestitures. We've done some preliminary analysis. We don't expect it to be really a material number by any means. There likely will be a small handful of divestitures as a result of HHI issues. That work's ongoing at this point. Okay. Just on the cost saves, can you give us a sense for where those are coming from? Kind of legacy Columbia, legacy Umpqua. How much of that $104 million after tax, what's the split like between the two organizations? Hey, Matt. As we said during our prepared remarks and some of our responses to Jared, this truly is a combination. A lot of the work on the cost saves, we're very confident in that number. A lot of that is going to be very nuanced and detailed. It's not necessarily take for 1 organization or the other. It's going to be what's the best go forward for the combined company. That's our mindset. I can't really give you a percentage of 38% from 1 company, but we'll provide more clarity on that as we get a little bit closer to our anticipated close. That's the 1 piece of your prior question I didn't respond to. Yeah, there's a backlog right now, as I said, on approvals of this nature. We expect that it will be a longer approval process than what we just went through with our Bank of Commerce Holdings approval that went very quickly. That's why we're anticipating a mid-2022 close for this. I don't know, Ron, if you have anything you want to add on the cost saves? I know it's in the deck also too. We lay out some of the mid-2022 close. We'll be looking to potentially do an integration in early 2023, and then just a matter of the timing. From a save standpoint, we expect that to feather in roughly a quarter in 2022, upwards of two-thirds in 2023, and then fully realized thereafter. Again, that might shift a little bit as we proceed. Okay. Last one for me. I think this will likely come as a surprise to most, this deal. Just knowing that Columbia was more focused on smaller filling deals and Umpqua being more focused on what was a much larger pipeline of late, the big buyback and obviously getting the Next Gen 2.0 savings out. I guess, why did both sides feel the need to combine here? Maybe just a little bit more background on when and why this came about. Well, Matt, before I pass it over to Cort, I don't think either organization felt the need to do this. That opportunity started with Cort picking up the phone and calling me and saying, "What do you think about this?" I said, "Well, let's spend a little bit of time together, and I don't know what to think about it." As we had that first meeting, it became very clear how similar we are and that's when the opportunity for what we could create for all of our stakeholders, and we touched on those. Our employees, more career advancement and development opportunities for them. A broader array of products and technologies to support our clients. Deeper support in our communities. In particular, we're in a lot of rural communities, and we're there together. This will give us staying power in those communities. The shareholder returns that we've modeled, and once again, that's with no revenue synergies, are pretty exceptional and compelling. That's why I think it's an opportunity. I don't know, Cort, if you want to add your perspective. I think that Clint said it very well. Neither Columbia or Umpqua had to do this for all the reasons that Clint just mentioned. There's never a perfect time one way or the other, but clearly, as you get to know an individual and the companies, and you realize, to Clint Stein's previous points, the similarities in how we can truly scale up. Make deeper investments and more relevant customer solutions, continue to differentiate and do that at scale, and know that the cultures of companies, which we'll keep saying the word culture here on this call extensively because it truly is one of the leading indicators of how something like this will be successful. When you get a further, more in-depth view, both Clint into my company and vice versa, I think it's just become obvious that we can create a great company together. Okay, thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Jon Arfstrom with RBC Capital Markets. Hey, thanks. Good morning. Congratulations. Hey, Jon. Hey, Jon. Couple questions for you. On slide seven, you talk about some of the overlapping synergies that you have. More products, larger balance sheet, broader opportunities. Can you talk a little bit about what you're thinking on revenue synergies and what's possible? I know it's not baked in, but maybe the top couple categories. Hold on one second. Sorry. I'll start with a couple that from the Columbia perspective. Something that we've made a lot of great progress on in recent years is our mortgage banking and one-to-four family lending. We're very proud of what our team has built, but it pales in comparison to the machine that Umpqua has built. Layering that across our combined customer base gives additional opportunities for diversification in that fee, that line of business. Also it reduces the concentration of that. I think on a pro forma basis, Ron, do you got the number, the 16% or something that mortgage banking fees should represent? Yeah, it's a total pro forma, and then if you're looking out over the consensus forecast for the next year and a half, we're talking probably less than 10% on a combined pro forma basis. Anyways, it's an opportunity. I think an example that I had in my prepared remarks was taking our healthcare platform, something that we've done for nearly 15 years, and it's been a very well high-performing portfolio and niche for us. We took that to the next level with the national platform that came over through the Pacific Continental deal. Now being a $50+ billion organization with a presence from the Canadian border to the Mexican border really gives us an opportunity to take that another step further. Those are just two examples. There's others that are out there, but I'll step back and see if Cort has something he wants to add. Then let me throw in, too. Columbia does an exceptional job with small business lending. We've also got FinPac Leasing, which is really a small ticket leasing company. It's been highly successful for us. I think we acquired it seven, eight years ago. They serve a small business market. The opportunity to combine up that very efficient delivery of leasing products with that small business lending platform that Clint and his team have created is an extraordinary leverage opportunity. Clint just mentioned another 1. We now as a commercial bank have small business, middle market, and corporate lending. We've got the entire stack on the commercial lending side. As companies grow through small businesses to middle market businesses to corporate businesses, those companies can grow within our balance sheets. We aren't faced with them getting too big for our institution and having to go to a competitor where they get that service. We're really thrilled about being able to provide that continuing care, if you will, as a C&I or a real estate customer goes through their growth process. I think that provides just an exceptional opportunity to leverage on both balance sheets. Okay, good. Couple more things here. Can you talk about the naming differences and some of the challenges there? I know you both have strong brands, but it seems like you're going to be using a couple different names. Can you talk about that a bit? Well, I'll start with that. In the spirit of this being a combination, we really wanted to find a way that kept the brand and the legacy that we've both built over many decades alive. I can share with you that it wasn't any contentious negotiations or anything like that. It just was clear to us that we had a pathway to be able to keep the Columbia name and the Umpqua name relevant. That's probably a little different. We talked for about 30 seconds about whether we create a new brand. That was a very short conversation because we have two very strong brands, and we found a way that we'd be able to continue both of those forward under one umbrella of leadership. It's great. I 100% agree. Okay. Yeah. Columbqua probably wouldn't do it, so I understand it. Two more topics here. On capital, on slide 20, you have a lot of excess capital. I think you both maybe view stocks attractively here, but what's your plan in the near to medium term in terms of repurchase activity? Jon, you asked a question about repurchase activity. Generally, quite a bit of excess capital generation. For the time being, though, obviously from announcement through release show of another repurchase plan, we wanted to show the full-time impact of this company on accretion and as presented within the deck, that favors that be it repurchase and/or dividend. The go-forward board will have quite a bit of excess capital generation to utilize to provide returns to shareholders. Nothing's been decided at this point on that, but we will most certainly keep you updated as we proceed through the process. On pause until the shareholder vote. That makes sense. Last thing, Ron, maybe for you. I'm less familiar with your balance sheet, but Columbia's very asset sensitive. Can you touch a little bit about the asset sensitivity of Umpqua and how levered you are to higher rates? Yes. Umpqua is asset sensitive. I'd say slightly less so than Columbia, but probably in the 50%-60% range if you were to use it on an identical basis, just compare the call report stats. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Ron. Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Rulis with D.A. Davidson. Good morning. Jeff, good morning. Just a question on maybe the thoughts on your growth rate of the combined franchise. I'm tracking the banks independently, but thinking about as you put the balance sheets together and the markets that it sounds like a limited divestiture, but if you think about loan growth and what you think the combined franchise would do. Thanks. Well, I'll go, Jeff. I'm going to speak about Umpqua, then I'll let Clint jump in on the back end. As we come through the back end of the pandemic and we see the markets that we operate continue to open up, clearly, we're not seeing what I would consider fully functional back to normal. Businesses of all kinds operating where they want to operate. We're extremely enthusiastic and optimistic about the growth potentials. Well, certainly Umpqua are, and I think of the combined organization. We're in great markets. Certainly, we are now in all of the markets in the West Coast that show the most significant ability to grow. Both now and I'll call it late pandemic and then post-pandemic. I couldn't be more pleased with where we're positioned, both geographically and just on the sheer size. Clint. The only thing I'll add to that is that we'll continue to keep our bankers focused externally and on the right activities. We've seen great momentum the past year in terms of opportunities for taking market share. We get a little more uptake in line utilization, some of those things. Then I think another area where there'll be some lift in terms of how it translates into bottom-line loan growth is as we scale our hold levels to the size that's appropriate for the combined company. A lot of the things that we're participating now they're laying off to other banks will stay fully in-house on our balance sheet, and that'll help add to the totals as well. Okay. It sounds like, I understand that we're sort of emerging through the pandemic and that the historical growth rates have kind of been this high single digits for both. That expectation, not putting forecasts out there, but that seems doable on a combined platform. We're enthusiastic. Fair enough. Switching gears, maybe a question on the technology platform and the conversion there. If you could briefly touch on the respective platforms and how you see that come together. Technology for both has been a big initiative, but really as we think about the core back office and as that comes together, is it on the Umpqua backbone? If you could touch on that'd be helpful. You have two CEOs and two CFOs here, and we'll probably completely butcher this response because the folks that are putting the systems together and evaluating them and have done hundreds of hours of work over the past six weeks or so aren't in the room with us. I think that the easiest way to sum it up is that while we both have invested significantly in technology, we had some gaps. Not huge gaps, but we had things that on our tech plans that we were each working to cover, and those gaps are complementary. As we look at our systems, Umpqua's core is benchmarked to 100 billion. Our system is benchmarked to 50 billion. That's probably the first decision. When we look at things like our treasury management platform, our CRM systems, we're on the same consumer online banking platform. We're excited about that. That'll be an easy decision on which one to stay with. It really is another example of just how complementary both organizations are to one another. The one thing that I'll add, then I'll step back and see if Cort and Ron have anything that they want to add, is that we're so laser focused on this integration that we've taken two executives from each company, and we've put into, I guess it launches today, the Office of Integration. With four execs between our two companies, they're going to have the resources and authority to make sure that this integration goes flawlessly. Jeff, Cort, and then I think Clint nailed it. I was delighted as we got into more of the detail in DD to see that Columbia probably leaned more into the commercial side of technology. Not to say we weren't leaning in, and we probably leaned into the retail side so much. Like Clint indicated, there's another complementary combination there with where we were investing our dollars. I think there's great opportunities to leverage not only the technology, but the potential revenue opportunities that can be gained from using those technologies within each other's companies. Just another great example of creating the West's leading regional bank. Okay. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Brandon King with Truist Securities. Hey, good morning. Good morning. I wanted to touch on cost savings. Is there a combined branch count implied in those cost savings? Is there a number on that? Hey, Brandon King, it's Cort. I don't know what slide it was in the deck, but there's obviously a significant branch overlap between the two companies. I think both companies have shown great discipline in the way we look at consolidating operations as independent companies and then combined as we move forward after close on looking at opportunities to consolidate. We've got quite a few stores that sit almost directly across the street from one another. We'll use the same discipline that we've employed. I think since I've been CEO at Umpqua, we've closed almost 100 stores. We will continue to use that discipline as we move forward. Well, I'll just add that, part of that, we've had a longstanding approach to looking at how we rationalize our retail network as well. I think both companies have a track record of being able to largely do those types of consolidations and cover any resulting reduction in positions through attrition. I think that's the biggest opportunity that we have here, is that as we look at those and identify the specific consolidations, that we're going to be able to largely handle that through attrition. Okay. Thank you. Lastly, I just wanted to touch on technology. I know Umpqua has the Go-To Banker app and the digital strategy. I was wondering if that, with the combined entity, would that be expanded or cross-sold with Columbia's customers? Yeah, Brandon, Cort, we're excited about leveraging Go-To. We were in the process of looking at additional features we were adding to Go-To, and then using the small business platform was another vertical inside Go-To, kind of in its genesis. As we continue to bolt on features. Yes, we're pretty excited about the ability, not only on the retail side, consumer side, but also small business. Okay. Thank you very much for answering my questions. Thank you. Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of David Chiaverini with Wedbush Securities. Hi. Thanks. A couple questions for you, starting with expenses. Are you able to comment, looking out, when we're fully normalized, whether it's 2024 or what have you, on the efficiency ratio? Is mid-50s reasonable or high 50s a more reasonable assumption as you look out? This is Ron. Looking at a couple of years from that standpoint, from an expense standpoint, I'd say it's going to be in that range. Again, based off the expenses, part of that longer term is going to be dependent upon which way rates move, et cetera. Nonetheless, we feel fully confident in our ability to achieve these cost savings we've laid out here and looking at the accretion over the next few years. Got it. Thanks. Shifting to fee income, I was wondering, are there any fee income opportunities that one organization can bring to the other, whether it's mortgage banking or anything else? Yeah. David, I think there's several. As I mentioned on one of my earlier responses is being able to take the home lending activities of Umpqua and layer those across the legacy Columbia customer base. I think that another thing that we haven't probably zeroed in on is our wealth management platform. We've got a full service wealth management group, and that group continues to do great things. Then having them have access to the Umpqua customer base is very exciting, and I think that that'll be a next level type opportunity for the wealth management platform. Great. Thanks very much. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of David Feaster with Raymond James. Hey. What a deal. Congrats, guys. These types of transactions, obviously, it's financially compelling, but they can be tough from a cultural and a personnel perspective. It's encouraging to hear how close the cultures are aligned and that it was still important when you guys were working through the transaction. You both have a lot of M&A experience. It seems like a lot of thought was put into splitting the branding and the board. I'm just curious, what are the guardrails or strategies that you may have put in place to help retain top talent and ensure a seamless integration of the two banks with limited disruption? I guess, as we look at the several other banks that we've seen go through these types of deals, what do you see as the biggest hurdle or challenge that y'all are going to be facing as you go through this deal? Well, David, there's a lot to that. You must not have slept last night after your Rays lost. I know. Sorry. That was a tough one. I'd rather see them in the playoffs than the Astros. Me both. I think that as we have gone through kind of looking at all the opportunities that are in front of us, we're not naive enough to think that our competitors aren't already picking up the phone and soliciting our clients and our bankers. As we have started to share this news and prior to 4:00 A.M. this morning, it was a very small group that was under the tent on this. As people begin to process this, they get very excited. What we're creating is something that hasn't existed in our market for 25 years. It's something that I think Frank said it best, Frank Namdar at Umpqua. He said, "This is going to be the place where everybody wants to work and everybody wants to bank." That's our goal. Now, we know that there will be challenges. For those that are up for the challenge, we're going to create a unified company that gives them access to enhanced professional development. They're not going to have to worry about their clients outgrowing them. They're not going to have to worry about holding back deal size. I think it's going to be a place where our employees thrive. That's going to drive. I'm looking over to see if anybody shakes their head no at me. We don't have any general counsel in the room, but we didn't model revenue synergies. When you look at the shareholder value creation that we have modeled, I do think those revenue synergies are going to come into play. That's not only going to reward our shareholders, but it's also going to help us continue to be the outstanding corporate citizens that we have both been in our communities. I think Cort probably got something he wants to add. No, I was going to drop the mic. I thought that was a great answer. Well, that's helpful. Thanks again, guys. Congrats on the deal. Thanks, David. At this time, there are no further questions. I'll turn the call back to the speakers for any closing remarks. Thank you, Erica. I'd like to express, on behalf of Cort and myself, our appreciation to our respective teams for all the hard work and the due diligence efforts and the input on how we're going to all work together to create exceptional outcomes for all of our stakeholders. We firmly believe our combination will create a leading West Coast regional bank. Our customers will continue to receive great service with an enhanced product offering. Our employees will have expanded growth opportunities within a larger organization. Our deep commitment to supporting our communities will continue, and we believe that this combination will benefit our shareholders with enhanced returns and superior capital generation. Thank you for your interest and attendance today. This will conclude the call. Goodbye. Thank you for participating. 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